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How do you protect yourself from ever increasing tribunal claims?

Posted: Jul 11, 2011

Employment Tribunals (ET) received an overall total of 218,100 claims during 2010-11 – 33% more than in 2008-09. Of these claims over 40,000 were down to equality and diversity in the workplace from sex discrimination, disability discrimination, race discrimination, unfair dismissal – pregnancy, discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and age discrimination.

With a large number of claims being brought to the Employment Tribunal how do employers protect themselves from costly and lengthy claims?

Prevention is better than a cure, developing understanding of best practice and raising awareness internally can increase employees understating of employment law issues avoiding any issues that may arise. Organisations need to take a proactive stance in championing and educating employees in equality and diversity; here are a few of the compelling business reasons why:

• Best practice employee management – we live in a world full of diverse individuals who should be treated equally. No ‘good’ employer should therefore avoid promoting and embracing diversity.  Top talent go to top businesses who do things the right way
• Compliance – more and more, a significant proportion of customers need evidence that suppliers are complying with the Equality Act and are serious about Corporate Social Responsibility.
• Risk avoidance – taking steps not to be caught out

Organisations have issues as they see any training as a) expensive and b) timely and therefore often choose to take the risk. Yet with the average claim in excess of £20,000, and claims on the increase, there is a strong argument for embracing on line solutions which are easily accessible, low cost and allow organisations to demonstrate compliance.  The decision as to whether to invest in prevention typically comes down to organisational culture and market and customer pressures.